Best in Show

by Laurien Berenson

  “What?” Aunt Peg stopped in shock.

  I kept right on walking and left her behind.

  A moment later, Aunt Peg caught up again. That was the beauty of her long legs versus my shorter ones.

  “I’m due in the ring,” I said. We were almost at the gate.

  “So I heard. So everybody heard. Do you actually know who killed Betty Jean?”

  I leaned over and whispered the answer in her ear.

  “You can’t be serious. Why on earth would she have done something like that?”

  “It’s a long story. But it’s true. Edith Jean saw the whole thing.”

  Aunt Peg was looking more astonished by the moment. I could totally empathize.

  “Do the police know?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You have to tell them!”

  As if that hadn’t occurred to me.

  “I’m planning to.” The announcer was standing in the ring, thanking the raffle donors, holding up the barrel, and asking me to join him. “Just as soon as I get a free minute.”

  Trust Aunt Peg to take matters into her own hands. While I spent the next half hour drawing ticket stubs, listening to winners shriek with delight, and watching as they selected their prizes from the bounty on the table, Aunt Peg managed to locate Detective Mandahar and tell him enough of what he needed to know.

  One minute Edith Jean was overseeing the prize selection at the raffle table. The next time I glanced over, the Boone sister had disappeared and Peg had taken her place. Fleetingly I wondered if Edith Jean had made a run for it. I needn’t have worried; Aunt Peg, as always, had everything under control.

  I drew the last ticket, heard the winner’s name announced, and left the ring with relief. Sam met me at the gate. He looked worried.

  “The police just took away Nina, Christian, and Edith Jean,” he said. “Do you know anything about that?”

  “Too much,” I replied. I was just glad it was over.

  Sam looped an arm around my shoulders. Still sore from earlier, I flinched at his touch. In the hours since I’d landed on top of the Mercedes, my body had probably bloomed with bruises.

  His gaze narrowed even as he gently gathered me to his side. “I heard there was some kind of car accident outside earlier. Anything you want to tell me about that?”

  I thought for a minute, then shook my head. There’d be plenty of time for explanations later. Meanwhile, the day’s three Best of Variety winners had just been called into the ring. There was only one PCA, and one chance to watch Best in Show. After all I’d missed earlier, I wasn’t about to pass it up.

  Three gorgeous Poodles, one Toy, one Mini, and one Standard paraded before the judge. I turned in Sam’s arms and faced the ring. Even then, he didn’t release me. My back braced against his chest. His chin brushed my hair. His arms cradled mine as he lifted his hands to clap. All around us, others did the same thing. Applause swelled and rose, filling the building with sound.

  It was perfect. There was nowhere else I’d have rather been.

  29

  The Standard Poodle from California took Best of Breed. Just in case you were wondering. Bubba won Best Puppy in Show. I was surprised to see Edith Jean standing ringside when it happened. I left Sam and went to talk to her.

  “You’re back,” I said.

  “I never went anywhere.” She moved over to make room for me on the rail. Now that the show was mostly over, the crowds were thinning fast. “You don’t think I’d have missed this, do you?”

  “I thought you left with the police.”

  “No, Nina and Christian left with them. I just went outside and talked to the detective. He wanted me to go down to the station and make out a statement. Of course I explained that I couldn’t leave now. Best in Show was about to happen.”

  Dog people. Aunt Peg would have done exactly the same thing.

  “I’m sure he was impressed,” I said dryly.

  “You got that right. He seemed to think he could bully me into doing what he wanted. I asked him if I was under arrest. He said no and I came back inside.”

  Steel magnolia, nothing. This southern woman was a steel howitzer.

  When Damien woke up, the police would be back. Then Edith Jean wouldn’t be a witness, she’d be a suspect. In the meantime, there was one last thing I needed to finish.

  “I know,” I said quietly.

  “Know what?”

  “About what happened to Edith Jean.”

  “I’m—” She stopped and looked at me for a long minute. “Oh.”

  “You didn’t burn your hand, did you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Edith Jean was right-handed. You’re left-handed. I kept wondering how you managed to cope so well.”

  “Maybe I’m ambidextrous,” she said brightly.

  “You might be, but that won’t make you Edith Jean. You had the locket all the time, didn’t you? You never took it off your sister. It was always yours.”

  She lifted a hand to her throat. Her fingers toyed with the golden charm. “You must think you’re pretty smart.”

  “No.” I sighed. It occurred to me that I’d been half hoping for a denial. Now I knew I wasn’t going to get one. “Actually, I must have been pretty slow to take this long to get it. That was why you went inside the hotel after your sister got hurt, why you didn’t tell the police what you saw that night. Because you were afraid they’d discover the truth, that Betty Jean Boone was alive and well. And Edith Jean was the one lying dead outside.”

  I thought back, picturing the body I’d seen lying in the shadows. She’d been wearing the grooming smock and I’d assumed it was Betty Jean. Had I been the first to identify her? I wasn’t sure.

  Even so, the mistake would have been easy enough to fix. Betty Jean, by her own admission, had been there and hadn’t corrected me. Instead she’d walked away and let the lie continue. Now I wanted to know why.

  “I saw the two of you earlier in the grooming room,” I said. “I could have sworn you were the one wearing the smock.”

  “I was. I’d put it on so I wouldn’t mess up my clothes while we worked on Bubba. But later when we went outside, Sister was cold. You remember that night, it was chilly. Sister wanted to go inside and I told her to go ahead. I was busy scooping and I said I’d be along in a bit. But you know how Sister was, she could argue the hide right off a bear. Finally she said, ‘If you’re so warm, give me the damn smock.’ So i did. I didn’t think another thing about it until I heard that scream, saw her on the ground, and heard you say she was me.”

  So it had been my fault. That was hardly comforting news.

  “Damien Bradley knew you both from way back,” I said. “He used to show your Poodles for you. That was why he wanted you to pay. He could tell the two of you apart.”

  Betty Jean nodded briefly, acknowledging that I was right. It wasn’t enough. I still wanted more answers.

  “All week long I thought I was getting to know Edith Jean,” I said. “Now it turns out I was wrong. Tell me about your sister.”

  “She was a good woman.” Her voice caught for a moment. She cleared her throat and said softly, “One of the best.”

  “The two of you spent a lot of time arguing,” I said. I wanted to understand what would make one sister walk away from the other’s murder. In my experience, that wasn’t something good women did.

  “That was just our way. It didn’t mean a thing.”

  “And yet you were willing to let her killer go free. Why?”

  “Edith Jean was married when we were younger.”

  “Earl,” I said. Just checking in case she’d been lying about that too.

  Betty Jean looked surprised that I’d remembered the name. “I guess you were paying attention.”

  I always did, I thought. Which was how I kept ending up in conversations like this one.

  “Earl had himself some money stashed away,” she said. “It wasn’t a huge amount but it was enough. When he died,
Edith Jean inherited it. That’s what’s kept us going all these years. That and the fact that Edith Jean was tight as a tick with every penny she ever had.”

  “You resented the fact that she had money and you didn’t.”

  Betty Jean’s head snapped up. “I resented the fact that she had Earl and I didn’t.”

  Oh.

  “I saw him first, I was the one who brought him home. But Sister was the one he married.”

  “That must have been hard. Both of you being in love with the same man.”

  “Not for Earl,” said Betty Jean. “That man had stamina like a bull.”

  Okay, now we were getting into the area of more than I needed to know.

  “And then he died,” I said. I hoped she’d been telling the truth about the tractor accident. I really didn’t want to hear that he’d died of a heart attack in bed.

  “Yup. And suddenly Sister was the one who held the purse strings. She was in control and she never let me forget it. That wasn’t right. I was the older one; she should have had to listen to me.”

  Even after death, it seemed that the Boone sisters’ bickering was destined to continue. “If you wanted your own money, why didn’t you get a job?” I asked.

  “Now how could I do that, when we had all our babies to take care of?”

  “Babies?” I gulped.

  “Our Poodles. Our puppies. Sister and I never had any children. The dogs meant everything to us. They were our children. I couldn’t have left them alone all day to go to work somewhere else.”

  The problem—as every dog show exibitor knew full well—was that breeding dogs wasn’t a money-making venture. Not if you did it right anyway.

  “You were Edith Jean’s closest relative,” I said. “Wouldn’t the money have come to you?”

  Betty Jean shook her head. “The money Earl left was in a trust. Something he set up before he got married. It would support her—heck, it supported both of us—for as long as she was alive. After that it reverts back to some other member of his family, and the Poodles and I get thrown out on the street. It’s not like I had any choice. Edith Jean had to stay alive and I made that happen. That’s why I walked away on Monday night. Nina Gold kept my secret and I kept hers.”

  “Our last night,” said Sam. “This week has really flown by.”

  It was later that evening and we were back at the hotel. Tar’s Award of Merit rosette was prominently displayed on the dresser in Sam’s room. Both our Poodles were sacked out on the floor. Sam and I had skipped out of the PCA banquet early. Now it was just the two of us.

  Finally.

  A proper bed, a door with a lock . . . I looked at Sam. He was loosening his tie. And too damn many clothes on both of us. We’d have to do something about that.

  I lifted a hand over my shoulder, reaching for the zipper at the back of my dress. A knock sounded at the door.

  “Don’t answer it,” I said quickly. “You know it’s Aunt Peg. Or Bertie. Or some detective wanting another statement.”

  I’d told most of what I knew to the police. I’d related the end of the story to Aunt Peg. Then I’d put the whole thing out of my mind.

  Damien was awake at the hospital. He wasn’t talking about his accident yet, but he would. When he did, justice of one sort or another would be served. For once, I intended to stay out of it.

  Sam chuckled softly, moving past me. “They’re all still at the banquet,” he said. “I’ll get that zipper in a second.”

  I reached out to stop him as the knock came again. “Room service,” said a voice outside the door.

  Sam opened up. He handed over a tip and accepted an ice bucket holding a bottle of champagne. The waiter handed him two tall flutes. Sam turned back to me. He pushed the door shut with his foot.

  “Better than your meddling relatives?”

  “Much better.” I exhaled slowly. It seemed like I’d been waiting to do that for a while.

  Sam’s fingers were cold from the ice when he got to my zipper. I leaned back into him. Wondered if together we’d make steam. I heard the zipper hiss as the dress fell open. Sam nudged it from my shoulders, his hands sliding on bare skin. Maybe we’d just make sparks.

  That would do.

  Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

  Laurien Berenson’s

  newest Melanie Travis mystery

  JINGLE BELL BARK

  coming in September 2004!

  When the Poodles and I arrived home that afternoon, Alice was sitting on our front step. I pulled the station wagon into the short driveway, stopped in front of the garage, and hopped out. “Aren’t you freezing?” I asked. “I hope you haven’t been here long.”

  “Only five minutes or so.” She stood up and brushed off the seat of her pants. “Here in the sun it’s actually quite pleasant.”

  “Why didn’t you just get my spare key out of the garage? You know where I keep it.”

  Door now open, we were both waiting while Faith and Eve sniffed every available spot in the front yard before deciding where they wanted to pee. They’d already been walked several times during the day so it wasn’t as though they were desperate. No, this was a territorial thing. Heaven forbid that their own yard should carry the scent of another dog.

  “Too much bother,” said Alice. “Besides, you have no idea how rare something like this is for me. To simply sit quietly, with no children needing me right this second, no husband calling from work to tell me he’s bringing a client home for dinner, no housework that has to be done. . . .”

  Nodding, I led the way into the perpetually disheveled interior of my small house. “Better the pristine outdoors than the messy indoors.”

  “Something like that.” Alice smiled and I did too. We’d known each other far too long to take offense at hearing the truth.

  Faith and Eve came flying up the steps together; I shut the door behind them. Alice and I pulled off coats, scarves, and gloves, and piled them on the coatrack.

  “How long does it take to get dogs trained like that?” she asked.

  At the moment, the Poodles were heading toward the kitchen where they were hoping I would give them a biscuit from the pantry. I assumed that wasn’t what she meant. “You mean housebroken?”

  “Exactly. We had a dog when I was little, but I don’t remember anything about the training process. I guess my parents must have been in charge of that. All I know is that every so often Rufus would make a mistake in the house and my mother would scream and scrub and act like the sanitary police were going to be descending upon us at any moment.”

  Nice image. I’d never had a pet when I was little, so everything that had happened first with Faith, and then again with Eve, was entirely new to me. “These guys were really quick to housebreak. But Poodles are different. At least that’s what Aunt Peg tells me.”

  Alice walked over to the refrigerator and helped herself to a diet soda. “Do you think your aunt might be willing to sit down with me and give me a few pointers on how to deal with a new puppy?”

  “I’m sure she’d be delighted to.”

  “Even though I’m not getting one from her?”

  “I can’t see why that would make any difference.” Since both Poodles were sitting expectantly outside the pantry door, I got out the peanut butter biscuits and passed a couple around. “Aunt Peg is all in favor of responsible dog ownership. And while she adores Poodles herself, she can certainly understand that not everyone feels they have to have one. That’s why there are approximately one hundred and forty-nine other breeds to choose from. Not to mention your basic, garden-variety mutts. Aunt Peg just wants to be sure that people who have dogs do right by them.”

  Alice pondered that. “She’s going to be pissed about where this puppy came from, isn’t she?”

  “Yup.” No point in denying it. Since Alice had grabbed a chair and settled in, I poured myself a drink too.

  “Look at it this way,” she said. “You don’t approve of Ms. Morehouse’s methods. But i
f people buy her puppies, they’ll be leaving her place and going to better homes. That’s got to be a good thing, right?”

  “Not necessarily. Because the fact the people are willing to pay Ms. Morehouse a decent sum of money for puppies she hasn’t put all that much thought and effort into producing only encourages her to keep on breeding. Not only that, but she doesn’t seem to care whether or not her puppies are going to good homes. Did she interview you when you talked to her you about buying one?”

  “Umm,” Alice thought back. “Not exactly.”

  “Did she ask any questions at all?”

  “She took down my name, address, and phone number.”

  “Which has nothing to do with whether or not you would be a good dog owner. Did she ask if you had a fenced yard?”

  “No.”

  “If you’d ever owned a dog before?”

  “No.”

  “If you had any children and what their ages were?”

  “Well, she knew about Joey, obviously. He’s in the play.” Alice was beginning to sound defensive.

  “But not about Carly. For all Ms. Morehouse knew, you might have had half a dozen children under the age of six.”

  “No, I couldn’t have,” Alice said firmly. “Trust me, my marriage wouldn’t have survived it.”

  “You can see what I’m getting at, though.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  I was leaning back against the counter. Faith ambled over, carrying a thick chew toy made of braided rope in her mouth. She pushed one end into my hand, checking if I wanted to play tug-of-war. I snatched the toy from between her teeth and waved it in front of her nose. Delighted, the Poodle jumped up and grabbed the toy back.

  “Ms. Morehouse told me that housebreaking was going to be a snap,” Alice said, watching the game. “Is she wrong about that too?”

  “Maybe not,” I allowed. “As long as you’re dedicated. And consistent. And you don’t mind taking your new puppy outside for a walk every couple hours.”

  “Every couple hours?” She stood up, rinsed her soda can in the sink, and tossed it in the recycling bin. “I thought dogs only had to go out three or four times a day.”